情绪一点就炸：被拒绝之前，我先拒绝你

每一个人或多或少都有自己的“情绪按钮”，就像雷区一样，一旦触碰，就会暴跳如雷。

有些人建立很多情绪按钮，也许只是为了保护自己。他们的内心深处，仍然渴望亲密，但过多的情绪按钮难以维持一段长久健康的关系，常常使自己陷入孤独。

What are the emotional hot buttons that lead you to overreact? Is there a certain way that people look at you, talk to you, or act in general that leads you to explode in anger or sadness? You can't explain why, but you know when this happens you feel your self-control slipping away.

你对能激起自己过度反应的情绪按钮有所了解吗？你会仅仅因为某些日常小事（他人的看法、言论或举止）就忽然生气或难过吗？你无法解释其中缘由，但是你知道自己无法控制这种情绪。

Everyone faces a situation when people take a poke at an emotionally sensitive spot in your psyche. For some individuals, though, those hot buttons are more prevalent and problematic than for others. They see criticism everywhere and, by their overreaction, make things worse.

每个人都会被别人戳到情绪敏感点。对于某些人来说，他们的情绪按钮比其他人更多，问题也更多。他们感觉批评无处不在，而他们的过度反应，会让事态更糟糕。

 This quality is called "rejection sensitivity" and involves the constant expectation that other people will not accept you.

这种特点被称为“拒绝敏感性”。他们会持续认为他人不会接纳自己。

Long Island University's Kevin Meehan and colleagues, in a new study, note that individuals high in this quality feel "sureness that rejection will be the likely outcome of an interpersonal exchange", and therefore "are often bracing themselves for signs of impending rejection".

长岛大学的Kevin Meehan及其同事在一项新的研究中指出，这种对拒绝高度敏感的人“确信人际交流很可能被拒绝”，因此“通常会做好了拒绝的准备”。

Once someone hits that hot button, "the person may exhibit desperate and often maladaptive responses to either shore up the perceived distance… escape the threatening context… or even retaliate against the perceived aggression".

一旦有人触碰情绪按钮，“他可能会很绝望，经常表现出难以适应，要么增加距离、逃避威胁，要么甚至可能报复他所感受到的这种攻击性”。

Now a vicious cycle is set in motion, and what they fear would happen in fact takes place. The individual avoids relationships altogether while still longing for closeness, an "irresolvable tension".

那么，一个恶性循环开始了，他们担心的事情发生了。他们避免和别人在一起，但仍然渴望亲密，进而造成了一种“无法解决的紧张局势”。

 However, the cycle can be broken if something about the situation changes. Maybe your interaction partner approaches you in a positive way even though you've been reticent. The entire dynamic now shifts.

但是，如果某些因素发生变化，这种恶性循环是可以被打破的。即使你保持沉默，你的小伙伴也可能会以一种积极的方式接近你。整个动态都在变化。

It's because of the interactive effect of person and situation that Meehan and his fellow researchers decided to adopt a model based on "interpersonal complementarity".

正是由于人和情境的互动效果，Meehan和他的研究人员决定采用一种基于“人际互补性”的模型。

The research team gives you a smartphone app which they can use to ping you at various points during the day. You provide a quick and immediate snap rating of your emotions, while at the same time indicating what else is happening around you.

研究团队会为你提供一个智能手机应用程序。研究员可以通过这个程序在白天的不同时间点通知你。你可以快速迅捷地对你当下的情绪进行评级，并表明周围发生了些什么。

The authors tested their method initially on a sample of 228 undergraduate students, producing findings that supported the interactive pattern between rejection sensitivity and ongoing interactions.

他们最初使用了228名本科生的样本，来测试他们的方法。测试支持拒绝敏感性和持续交互之间的互动模式。

People high in rejection sensitivity presented themselves as cold and submissive and reticent toward approaching others, even if that person was acting warmly.

对拒绝敏感度高的人在接触别人的时候会表现出冷漠、顺从和沉默，即使对方表现得十分热情。

Having established this basic pattern in a large-scale study, the authors next took advantage of the more in-depth understanding provided by a case study approach, using a single participant to provide all the data.

在大范围研究中确立了这种基本模式之后，研究员们接下来利用了个案研究法进行更深入的探究，用单个参与者提供所有数据。

 Their participant, "Mary", was a young Latina college student who had scored high on rejection sensitivity, but didn't show any signs of personality pathology.

他们的参与者“玛丽”是一位年轻的拉丁裔大学生。她对拒绝非常敏感，但没有表现出任何人格病理迹象。

Mary used the smartphone app to rate her interactions lasting at least five minutes, at least three times a day, for seven days.

玛丽使用智能手机应用程序评估她的互动情况，至少持续五分钟，每天至少三次，持续七天。

She described whom the interaction was with, and then rated the other person on a grid containing the two axes of dominant to submissive, and cold to warm.

她描述了互动的对象，然后将互动对象放在一个网格（其中包含两个坐标轴：从主导到顺从、从冷到暖）上。

She also rated herself on that exact same grid. The authors then divided up the 28 events she recorded on the basis of who Mary was interacting with at the moment of her ratings and whether these people were close to her or not.

她还将在完全相同的网格上为自己评分。然后，研究员们将她记录的28个事件进行了分类。这28个事件是根据玛丽在与谁进行互动，以及这些人是否与她亲近。

From the in-depth analysis that Meehan and his colleagues provided of Mary's experiential ratings, it was clear that with the people she cared about, her rejection sensitivity led her to be unable to express her own needs and desires.

根据Meehan和同事对玛丽试验评级所进行的深入分析，可以看出，她对拒绝的高度敏感性导致她无法向她所关心的人们表达自己的需求和愿望。

 If those people actively expressed their own needs and desires, Mary's withdrawal, in turn, suggested to them that she didn't care about them.

如果这些人积极表达自己的需求和愿望，玛丽的退缩会让他们觉得她并不关心他们。

To sum up, this research shows how your own hot buttons might be causing the very relationship problems you dread.

总之，这项研究表明你自己的情绪按钮可能会导致你所担忧的那些关系问题。

Whether you feel threatened by rejection or by other negative consequences in your relationships, knowing that your perceptions may be distorted by your fears can help you overcome these important obstacles to your fulfillment.

无论你是否感到被拒绝或其它负面后果的威胁，明白你的看法可能会被你的恐惧所扭曲这一点，可以帮助你克服这些明显障碍，以实现你的目标。